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The CITE, a blog published by the National Association of College Stores, takes a look at the intersection of education and technology, highlighting issues that range from course materials to learning delivery to the student experience. Comments, discussion, feedback, and ideas are welcome.

Monday, March 31, 2014

As part of the redesign of the standardized SAT exam used for college admission, the College Board also decided to provide free
test-prep materials through the online learning Kahn Academy. The partnership
was created because David Coleman, president of the College Board, considers the
test-prep industry “predators that prey on the anxieties of parents and children
and provide no real educational benefit.”

Test-prep has become a billion-dollar business,
costing parents hundreds of dollars for each course. The services review content
and test-taking techniques students should know, along with hundreds of
practice questions that help overcome test anxiety, but some research indicates students taking the review classes may only improve their scores by small
margins.

Free online test-prep tutorials will make the
information more accessible, but will probably not stop parents from paying it.
At the same time, firms that offer test-prep services are supporting the College
Board partnership with Kahn.

“The free resources supplied by Sal Kahn may actually
expand the market now that students know that test prep works and is necessary
for them to perform best on the SAT,” Deborah Ellinger, CEO of the Princeton
Review which offers test-prep services, told The Atlantic.

Friday, March 28, 2014

A
mobile device in the classroom used to be a one-way ticket to detention, but
now educational apps are making smartphones a classroom must. Paul Sowada, of
Mutual Mobile, talks about the future of education and technology in this
Mobile Minute video.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Students at
Alamo Colleges in Texas said “No thanks” to an effort to save them money on
course materials.

A petition
signed by 1,000 students opposed the Alamo district’s plan to adopt the same
digital and open-source materials for large courses offered across multiple
campuses, a move designed to save money. Instead of buying print books
individually, students would pay a fee in advance to gain online access to
their reading materials.

But many
students didn’t think much of the plan, according to the San Antonio Express-News. Some told the newspaper
they didn’t have the funds to buy e-readers in order to be able to carry their
digital course materials to class, or anywhere else. Some preferred print
formats and didn’t want to be forced to study from a screen. Others said
they’ve been able to find traditional textbooks at affordable prices by
shopping around on their own.

The
district, which encompasses five community colleges, decided in January to go
ahead with the proposal despite complaints from faculty, who felt the
administration was taking away their right to select materials for the courses
they teach.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Smartwatches are good for checking a user’s pulse and
email, but soon may allow wearers to answer the phones. Samsung is working on a version of its Gear 2 device with built-in support for cellular networks that would make it possible for users to receive phone calls.

Besides the cool sci-fi aspect, a smartwatch with an
independent data connection could provide users with the ability to sync and
update data more frequently and accurately. It could also give location data
and even transmit live video if it can be combined with an onboard camera.

Use of the device would be limited to Korea initially, but
the first real obstacle to the device is that it could become too bulky to
attract consumer interest. Size will be added to the Gear 2 as it is modified
to support both SIM cards and cellular radio.

Battery life could be another deal-breaker. Samsung
increased the battery life of its original Galaxy Gear device from 24 hours to two
to three days for the Gear 2. However, the cellular radio necessary to make
phone calls might cut the battery life to 24 hours or less, which could make it
much less palatable for consumers.

The first version of the Gear 2 smartwatch will be
limited to Bluetooth connectivity when it is released in April. Users will be
able to make and receive phone calls on the device as long as it’s connected to
a smartphone.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Granting credit for massive open online courses (MOOCs)
caught the attention of legislators across the nation, with Florida passing a
bill that orders education officials to allow students to transfer credits from
MOOCs. The American Council on Education has even recommended that 12 specific
MOOCs be granted college credit, leaving the final decision to individual
institutions.

Unfortunately, the groundswell of interest has been met
with silence from students. Both Colorado State University-Global Campus and
University of Maryland University College are offering credit for passed MOOCs
and have yet to have one student take advantage of the offer.

The University of Texas at Arlington has found success by
offering the MOOC2Degree initiative from Academic Partnerships. The program
allows students to apply credit earned from a MOOC to a degree program at a
partner school.

UT Arlington joined the program to attract registered
nurses into its bachelor of science of nursing program. Of 342 students who
took the introductory MOOC, 8% completed the course for credit with 14 students
either enrolled into or applying for the school’s online nursing program in
January.

By taking the UT Arlington nursing MOOC, participants
gained confidence to enroll in the online program while earning three credits,
according to Beth Mancini, associate dean of the nursing college. In addition,
there was a real savings for the students who paid $43 for the proctored exam
instead of $771 for the traditional online course.

“There’s a hype cycle for anything new, and MOOCs were
the big new thing that everyone was talking about, Marie Cini, provost and
senior vice president for academic affairs of the University of Maryland
program, told University Business.
“I think we’re going to find out in the next year or two how MOOCs are going to
be applied to the educational horizon. It’s just like online learning—many
institutions will do some piece of it, but it’s not going to replace all of
higher education.”

Monday, March 24, 2014

The Department of Education allows colleges and
universities to self-report the number of online courses they make available to
students. New researchfrom ApprovedColleges found that those numbers are not really adding up.

The report showed that the Integrated Postsecondary
Education Data System (IPEDS) lists 3,311 schools offering online
programs. After ApprovedColleges went through
the websites of 90% of the colleges and universities listed by IPEDS and
cataloged their online programs for more than 18 months, it found just 1,243
actually being offered.

The authors of the report concluded that the main
reason for the discrepancy was that the database included every location a
school might have listed as a separate entity and that the term “online” is
ambiguous and broad. The study found five for-profit colleges that listed more
than 280 campuses with each reporting online courses, while other colleges had placed
noncredit online courses on the list.

The WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies also
did a studybased on IPEDS data on students taking distance education course in fall 2012
and came to a similar conclusion. It found that public institutions had 71% of
students enrolled that semester, with just 13% of the students enrolled in only
distance education classes.

Friday, March 21, 2014

While some parents think their kids are being bombarded
with homework assignments, the annual Brown Center Report on American Education
paints quite a different picture.

The percentage of 17-year-olds who reported having between
one and two hours of homework on a typical school night fell from 27% in 1984
to 23% in 2012. In another study, the University of California-Los Angeles
found that the percentage of college freshmen nationwide who remembered having
six or more hours of homework a week as a high school senior dropped from 50%
in 1986 to 38% in 2012.

“It still doesn’t look like kids are overworked,” Tom
Loveless, an education researcher who conducted the Brown Center Report for the
Brookings Institute, told USA Today. “The percentage who are overworked is really small.”

The study should help combat the perception some parents
have that homework loads are out of control. Some school districts are even
thinking about placing time limits on assignments or making homework optional.

However, data from the National Assessment of
Educational Progress (NAEP) found that the 17-year-olds who reported having no
homework at all went from 27% in 1984 to 22% in 2012. The NAEP study also found
that nine-year-olds were the only students who reported an increase in homework
assignments, with 22% of the students reporting no homework in 2012 compared to
35% in 1984.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Knewton is trying to create the world’s most valuable
repository on how people learn, according to founder and CEO Jose Ferreira. A
partnership with Microsoft that allows the technology giant to incorporate
Knewton software into its products is another step toward that goal.

The Knewton application programming interface (API) gives
schools, publishers, and content developers a way to build personalized
educational content for any student with real-time analysis of the student’s
performance.

Knewton is already working with a number of publishers,
as well as hardware developers, course-delivery platforms, and learning
management systems. The latest partnership allows Microsoft to enhance its
products, such as Office and Windows tools, while Knewton gains a much wider
distribution channel,
including governmental education agencies worldwide.

“Knewton is trying to create some kind of standard
around adaptive learning and be the brains behind adaptive content,” Rob
Wrubel, executive vice president at Apollo Education Group, told VentureBeat.
“And Microsoft will now be able to offer more personalized content to
students.”

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

At 25, the World Wide Web has become an integral part
of life. A recent Pew Research study found 87% of adults in the United States
use the Internet, 90% admit the Internet has been good for them, and 76%
believe it’s been good for society.

In another Pew study, technology experts said that by
2039 access to the Internet will be like flipping a switch for electricity and an
Internet of Things will allow artificial intelligence-enhanced, cloud-based
information storage and sharing via smartphones, wearable technology, and smart
appliances.

Most of the innovation will come about as digital
natives grow older. Those individuals are currently in school or on campus.

“The first generation that grew up on the web is
hitting maturity,” Jeff Jaffe, CEO of the World Wide Web Consortium, told Computerworld.
“Everything that’s happened until recently was with people who weren’t web
natives by birth using technology and using it to improve life. I can only
imagine when you have digital natives hitting maturity the level of innovation
will be even greater.”

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

An online education may not necessarily be cheaper for students.
According to a study from Hanover Research, the average cost of an online
bachelor’s degree is $43,477, while the College Boardreported that a student going to an in-state public university would spend
around $35,000 for the same degree.

Hanover Research examined data from 699 colleges and universities in the Peterson’s Distance
Learning Database. It found that nearly 9,000 online certificate and degree
programs were being offered by the institutions. Business, health fields, and
computer sciences were the most popular undergraduate programs.

An online graduate degree costs $21,959, according to
the Hanover analysis. The College Board data showed that similar grad programs
cost $15,000-$20,000 when taken on campus, depending on the length of the
program.

The total cost represents tuition paid over the entire
program and doesn’t include any financial aid. It also doesn’t represent all
online universities. For instance, students only have to pay exam fees to earn
degrees in business administration and computer science at the University of the People,
while Thomas Edison State College allows students to earn credit for free
online courses through a credit-by-exam program.

Monday, March 17, 2014

3-D printers
created a buzz at CAMEX 2014. In fact, Estella McCollum, CCR, director, KU
Bookstore, University of Kansas, posted on Facebook how excited she was to
purchase one for her store.

Now there’s news
that Amazon also has its eye on 3-D printing. Just prior to CAMEX, the online
giant announced a pilot program with 3DLT, a Cincinnati, OH-based startup firm,
to sell 3-D printed products through its website.

3DLT was one of
the first companies to market 3-D printed products and printing designs, which
ultimately caught the attention of Amazon.

“When we began
feeding the products into Amazon, we got a call from them,” John Hauer, CEO of
3DLT, told the Cincinnati Business Courier.
“We said, ‘We’re putting some products in your marketplace.’ They said, ‘That’s
all well and good, but we don’t have a category called 3-D printed products.’
We said, ‘We’d like to help you create one.’”

The pilot started
with categories for 3-D printed toys, home accessories and decor items,
jewelry, and fashion/tech accessories. 3DLT already has 50 items listedand plans to introduce more in the coming weeks.

“I think it’s
going to be huge because, first of all, Amazon gets 90 million unique
[visitors] a month, so there’s a likelihood they could drive some traffic,”
Hauer said. “More importantly for us, it’s demonstrable proof that we’re able
to feed into another platform and manage that process. We believe that will be
very helpful in dealing with other retail concerns that are looking to bring
3-D printing into their ecosystem.”

Friday, March 14, 2014

Massive open
online course provider Courserahas followed up its December release of an iPhone app with one for the iPad.

The new app is loaded with more than 600 courses, allowing users to download content
for offline viewing. It also provides videos and reviews of written study
material, along with educational quizzes.

Coursera, which
has started work on an Android app it plans to launch later this spring, has
been slow to develop mobile apps, but the new release appears to be worth the
wait. VentureBeat reportedthe Coursera iPhone app earned a 4.5-star rating on the App Store.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

In an effort to reduce the cost of textbooks, Cyril
Oberlander, director of the library at State University of New York (SUNY)
Geneseo, devised a grant programcalled SUNY Open Textbooks that asked SUNY professors to write their own
textbooks.

Professors apply for grants to write textbooks that are
peer-reviewed by other faculty members. If the work is accepted, the university
publishes the title and grants students free access to it.

The project started with a $25,000 grant to publish
four textbooks, but then spread to other SUNY libraries, which added another
$40,000 to the coffers and increased the number of textbooks to 15. Oberlander
received 38 proposals from professors and has already published four titles,
with the remaining 11 expected to be released in June.

Oberlander received a further $60,000 in funding for
the project and 46 manuscripts have been proposed. This second batch of
proposals will undergo a new review process that provides professors with blind
abstracts that are evaluated on whether the content can be used by the entire SUNY
system.

Oberlander is now considering ways to integrate texts
with different learning styles, such as embedding audio into electronic
versions or adding analytics to allow professors to track how well students are
learning.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Recent studies from Pew Research and Google showed that
85% of cellphone users aged 18-29 use their devices to go online and half of
that group turn to their phones to surf the web before thinking about using a
desktop or laptop device. The studies also found that 61% of all cellphone
users said they would probably never return to a website if they had trouble
viewing it on their mobile device.

Despite those findings, a new survey reports that a lot
of colleges and universities fail to communicate with their target audience
through their mobile devices. A survey of 200 public and private schools in New
Jersey and Pennsylvania by the marketing agency Princeton Partners found that
more than 70% lack a mobile presence and 50% of the schools with a mobile
presence were deficient in terms of technology, mobile content, or both,
according to a report in University Business.

The survey found that colleges and universities don’t
often replicate the content, design, and navigation tools used in their
PC-based websites for mobile applications. They also don’t create “mobile
responsive” technology solutions that adjust to individuals browsers and
devices.

That’s a problem because there’s so much more
competition for potential applicants, who are constantly using mobile technology.

“An effective mobile capability can validate that a
school is technologically savvy,” said Jeanne Oswald, former executive director
of the New Jersey Commission on Higher Education and an industry advisor to
Princeton Partners. “As potential students comparatively shop and learn online,
institutions of higher learning can enhance brand perception and market
engagement by communicating effectively with teens and young adults through
their mobile devices.”

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Sales of personal computers are declining, but that
doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the PC is near. While tablet computers are a
hot commodity, there are good reasons why PCs remain useful, according to Chris
Hoffman in a postat How-To-Geek.

“In reality, there are more different types of hardware
and software than ever,” he wrote. “Not everyone is forced to use a beige tower
running Windows. But PCs aren’t dying just because people have more choice.
Some people will always need large screens, multiple windows, mice, keyboards,
and all that other good stuff. Not everything will be done on a 10-in. or
smaller touchscreen.”

To prove his point, Hoffman referred to a Gartner Inc.
report which showed that 82.6 million PCs were shipped in the fourth quarter of 2013,
a 6.9% drop from the fourth quarter of 2012 and the seventh straight quarter with
a decline. However, web traffic analysis from StatsCounter showed that PC browser-usage
data in January 2014 accounted for nearly 72% of visits, compared to just
22.42% for smartphones and 5.69% for tablets.

And while tablet shipments continue to rise, it was at a
much slower rate. International Data Corp. found that 76.9 million tablets were
shipped in the fourth quarter of 2013, which represented growth of 28.2% in a
market that had increased 87.1% over the same quarter in 2012.

“The statistics show that PCs are still selling in
large numbers and are used much more than tablets,” Hoffman wrote. “But we
don’t need statistics to see this—we all know that huge amounts of people still
use and need PCs.”

Monday, March 10, 2014

College
students like the speed and convenience of mobile commerce, and are coming to
expect it at retail establishments, if the experience of the Alvin Community
College Store, Alvin, TX, is any indication.

After
Manager Victoria Marvel added a mobile solution to her store’s point-of-sale
system in order to facilitate remote sales at events such as ACC baseball
games, she didn’t need to do much training with her student employees. When she
showed them the handheld checkout device, “our student workers just grabbed it
out of my hand and wanted to play around with it,” she said during her
educational presentation on Go to Your Students: Mobile Commerce at CAMEX 2014
in Dallas, TX.

Her student
customers were equally excited. These days, with students preferring not to
carry around much cash, they were thrilled to be able to buy spirit merchandise
at games with their debit or credit card.

“Students absolutely
love it,” Marvel said. To complete the sale, all she has to do is scan the bar
code on the product tag, swipe the customer’s card, and find out if they want a
receipt.

She can
print out a paper receipt from the mobile device, or email a digital version to
students if they prefer. “They don’t really care about receipts,” Marvel
commented, “but probably 20% to 30% have it come to email.”

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Whether you call it "play-based learning" or "serious games," the use of gaming elements in higher education classrooms "is taking off," according to Mark Milliron, co-founder and chief learning officer of Civitas Learning, Austin, TX, and formerly chancellor of the Western Governors University-Texas, in his Thought Leader presentation at CAMEX 2014 in Dallas, TX.Acceptance of the value of educational gaming in higher education is rising, Milliron said, partly because neurological studies show that gaming does enhance higher-brain functions. The military is already using simulation gaming in its training.For college and university teaching, games are able to engage students in ways that traditional lectures and other methods cannot. The gaming format is already familiar to students, some of whom don't really feel at ease in the regular classroom."Anyone who has said kids can't concentrate haven't observed this behavior at all," Milliron noted, referring the way young people are able to focus their attention for long periods of time while playing a video game.Some games allow students to work together to build skills and solve problems in an online environment, rather than learning on their own in isolation. That also helps to keep students engaged and on track. "The social connection of games really matters," Milliron said.

Saturday, March 8, 2014

College students and tenured faculty agree: When all else is equal, they'd rather use print textbooks. But newly minted faculty may be predisposed toward digital course materials.Guy Adams, who's in charge of academic publishing and outreach for the UCLA Store at the University of California Los Angeles, has noticed that the newer faculty on his campus are the ones most comfortable with online materials. Adams was part of a panel presentation addressing Best Practices in Course Materials on March 7 at CAMEX 2014 in Dallas, TX.He said the new faculty became accustomed to using online resources while preparing their dissertations and doing other work for their doctorate studies. That comfort level is now carrying over into their teaching and they're more apt than older faculty to choose digital materials for their courses, often materials accessed through the school's learning management system (LMS)."They're very facile with using this and teaching with this," Adams told the audience. "The bookstore is not involved with this process at all." For that reason, he advised campus bookstores to learn as much as possible about their institution's LMS and look for opportunities to get involved.

Friday, March 7, 2014

While free to users, most quality open content still incurs costs for development and distribution. How can costs for academic content be recouped while still ensuring students have free access?In his Thought Leader presentation March 7 at CAMEX 2014 in Dallas, TX, Charles Key noted that a number of business models for open educational resources are emerging. "There's a lot of money coming in from government and college systems," said the director of adoptions, grants, and the College Open Textbooks project for the Open Doors Group, a nonprofit dedicated to education affordability.These funds are paying for development of course content intended to be shared among institutions. For-profit publishers are also providing some digital content at no charge while offering other formats and enhanced services for a fee.The concept of assessing a special student fee "hasn't caught on but is increasingly being looked at," Key said. Typically, the fee runs around $100 per term.In some cases, individual schools and academic departments are choosing to produce course materials out of their own budgets. The mathematics faculty at one community college, for example, decided to collaborate on writing textbooks for all classes; the books have been used by some 600,000 students so far.Some professors are also willing to take time to create their own course materials, a trend Key said is on the rise since textbook affordability has become a hot issue.

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Yale University is set to rent out Google Glass devices
through its Bass Library in the fall. The programis a partnership between the Instructional Technology Group, the Student Technology
Collaboration, and the library.

Students and faculty are being asked to propose fall-semester
research and teaching projects using the device. Library staff is working on
ways to use the devices, such as assisting handicapped library patrons and as a
scanner to fill student requests from the book stacks.

Google Glass caught the attention of the university
last fall when Henry Furman, a senior quarterback on the football team, wore
the device during a team practice. The feed Furman recorded was turned into a
video that gives fans a quarterback’s perspective of the game.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

In 2011, Texas Gov. Rick Perry challenged education
leaders in his state to develop a four-year baccalaureate degree that cost no
more than $10,000 to complete. Officials responded with a three-year degree
program that costs $13,000 and uses online courses to deliver on the low-cost
promise.

The Texas Affordable Baccalaureate Degree Program allows students to earn 90 credit hours online, with the last 30 offered in
both traditional classrooms and online settings. Students are also allowed to
earn credits for lower-division coursework by proving they have mastered the
concept.

The cost is $750 for each seven-week period and
includes e-textbooks. Students are able to complete as many courses as they can
within that seven-week period without additional cost.

The program was launched in early February at South
Texas College and Texas A&M-Commerce. It is supported by the College for
All Texans Foundation and a two-year, $1 million grant from Educause and the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Its goal is to teach skills employers view
as necessary for students to join the workforce.

“We also listened to what national and regional
employers are saying they really want: graduates with critical thinking skills
who are quantitatively literate, can evaluate knowledge sources, understand
diversity, and benefit from a strong liberal arts and sciences backgrounds,”
said Van Davis, director of innovation, Texas Higher Education Coordinating
Board. “This isn’t just another business degree.”

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

College
and university campuses are possibly the only places where consumer
technologies, higher learning, new media, electronic and mobile commerce,
libraries, retail technologies, and digital content intersect. Educational
sessions coming up March 7-8 at the 2014 Campus Market Expo (CAMEX) in Dallas,
TX, will address just about all of those areas.

Among
the presenters for the Thought Leader series will be Charles Key, director of
adoptions, grants, and the College Open Textbooks project for the Open DoorsGroup in San Jose, CA, a coalition of organizations working together to make
education more accessible, and Mark Milliron, chancellor of the WesternGovernors University-Texas, a nonprofit institution providing online and
blended degree programs.

Key
will address Open Educational Resources and the Economies of Sale on Friday
morning while Milliron’s Saturday session will discuss Technology, Education,
and the Road Ahead.

Concurrent
CAMEX educational sessions will explore new retail technologies for campus
textbook sellers, how campus stores can work with other entities to support
student retention and success, updates on the Higher Education Act and
Department of Education regulations, how faculty and students are using
technology for their studies, digital content pilots on college campuses,
mobile commerce developments, connecting with students through social media,
trends in higher education course materials, and integrating e-commerce and
digital content platforms.

Flash
Sessions (shorter takes on topics) will look at how campus stores can support
student learning outcomes, helping students understand interactive digital
homework solutions, selling textbooks online, using Google Analytics to track
web traffic, what technology products students are buying, licensing course
content, and where massive open online courses (MOOCs) could be headed.

Watch
The CITE for reports from several of these sessions.

Following
the session days, CAMEX will continue March 9-11 with its trade show for
retailers serving students at higher education institutions and prep schools. CAMEX is owned and produced by the National Association of College Stores.

Monday, March 3, 2014

Administrators on both the college and K-12 level agree
they need to collaborate more. The problem is few actually do.

A recent telephone survey of 104 public school
superintendents and 101 leaders of public and private two- and four-year
colleges and universities found that most superintendents (90%) and college
system leaders (80%) say they believe their collaboration is extremely or very
important. At the same time, just 33% of superintendents and 34% of
postsecondary leaders say they do collaborate extremely or very effectively.

“K-12 is much more top-down than higher ed
and decisions can be made more quickly,” Jacqueline King, director of higher
education collaboration for the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, told Education Week.
“This can be frustrating to K-12 to have higher-ed people want to talk [issues]
to death.” On the other hand, college administrators often believe K-12 leaders
don’t understand they just “can’t snap fingers and make things happen,” she
added.

The research, The Collaborative Imperative,
also showed both groups tend to have different priorities and question whether
their counterparts view collaboration as that important. Superintendents want
to see an improvement in the development of teachers and in ways to align
instruction with higher ed, while postsecondary leaders are focused on
improving students’ transition into college and reducing the need for remedial
courses. College administrators tend to blame budget constraints as a barrier to
collaboration with their public school counterparts, who say they are just too
busy to make time for collaboration.

“Although not insurmountable, these barriers especially
require fresh and innovative thinking about how resources can be marshaled or
pooled if we are serious about functioning as a coherent educational system,
rather than separate sectors,” the report said. “We especially recognize the promise
of regional collaboration, organized among schools and colleges who share
students and teachers in common and who, therefore, have clear connections to
shared outcomes and compelling overlapping interests.”